Since ESO is not released yet or there is no word how "patches and general server maintenance" will work. So I asked in more general terms for other games, like WOW, GW2, RIFT, etc. How long does this take and how often do other games take their servers offline for "patches and general server maintenance?" Do they do it once a week like RIFT does?

Thanks

A weekly maintenance schedule for servers has been pretty standard in most MMO's I have played. Depending on if they are patching, or just doing routine maintenance, it usually lasts from a couple hours, usually in the early morning, to 6+ hours for big patches.

I know the awnser to this, it will be during europe day time, so it dont effect us players..

We don't' know the details as of yet. However it would not be too hard to determine the time period that statistically has the least amount of player's online, and designate that the Maintenance Window.

Eh, for normal maintenance the game will be down just for a few hours, but on days when there are big content patches expect the servers to be down for at least 3-4 hours, and constantly being up and down for the next 3 hours. It was like this a lot in WoW. Maintenance days usually aren't that bad since they happen early in the morning and not many people on up, but big patch days can be a pain to get in because there are always problems.